Übermicroblog, Twitter has announced that it will begin restricting tweets in certain countries, marking a dramatic policy shift for the site.

The site said even with the possibility of such restrictions, Twitter would not be able to coexist with some countries.

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” Twitter wrote in a blog post. “Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there,” it said.

Twitter gave as examples of restrictions it might cooperate with “certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content”.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to elaborate on the blog. “Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the Twitter blog said.

Twitter’s decision to begin censoring content represents a significant departure from its policy of just one year ago, when anti-government protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries coordinated mass demonstrations through the microblog and, in turn, thrust Twitter’s disruptive potential into the global spotlight.

As the revolutions brewed last January, Twitter signalled it would take a hands-off approach to censoring content in a blog post entitled The Tweets Must Flow :: Read the full article »»»»